A Story Written with Water (水で書かれた物語, Mizu de kakareta monogatari) is a 1965 Japanese New Wave drama film directed by Yoshishige Yoshida, adapted from a novel by Yōjirō Ishizaka.[1] The film's title derives from John Keat's epitaph: “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.”[a][2] It follows the story of a young man torn between his fiancée and his long-suffering single mother, towards whom he harbors an oedipal attraction. It was the director's first independent film after leaving Shochiku.[2] It was ranked the 10th best film of the year by Kinema Junpo in 1965.[3]
Plot
Shizuo Matsutani, a young salaryman and introvert, lives with his beautiful mother, Shizuka Matsutani, towards whom he feels a strong attraction. Shizuo's father and Shizuka's husband Takao is sickly and often hospitalized, and thus unable to provide for his family. Shizuka has an affair with a wealthy man, Denzo Hashimoto. Shizuo hates the strong and confident Denzo.
Denzo and his mother recommend that he marry Denzo's dauther, his childhood friend Yumiko Hashimoto. However, Shizuo sees in Yumiko's face a resemblance to his mother. He asks Denzo if Yumiko is the daughter of Shizuka and hence his half-sister, but Denzo hesitates and denies it.
A few months later, Shizuo marries Yumiko. However, he continues to worry that he has married his sister but does not tell Yumiko and treats her in a way that makes her feel unattractive. Eventually, Shizuo visits his mother and invites her to commit double suicide with him because he has no hope for life. His mother is confused. Later he finally makes love to Yumiko and for the first time feels love for her.
A Story Written with Water marked a radical departure from the more conventional cinema that Yoshida created during his studio career at Shochiku. It inaugurated his celebrated cycle of "anti-melodramas," each of which starred Mariko Okada and challenged the genre's conventions regarding family and women's suffering. It is more poetic that his previous films and utilizes a complex structure of fluid flashbacks that merge past and present.[4]
Notes
^Writ with water suggests the opposite of "carved on stone." Meaning that Keat's life and the story of the film will fade into oblivion.
References
^"水で書かれた物語 | 映画" [A Story Written with Water | Movie]. Nikkatsu (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 17 January 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
